The management platform of business travel based in Barcelona Traveperk has collected $ 200 million with a strong evaluation of $ 2.7 billion-quasi twice the evaluation of $ 1.4 billion in its previous fundraising last year.
Next to the relaunch, Traveperk also announced that he has acquired Swiss startup Yokoy to bring the management of native expenses to the fray.
With the travel and tourism industry almost returning to pre-plants, this has proved to be an advantage for the startups that offer everything, from tourist packages and travel planning tools, to a luggage and smart deposit for Holidays.
This trend was reflected in some way in the corporate sphere, with the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) noting that business trips were on the route to reach a record of $ 1.5 trillions of dollars in 2024-6, 2% more than the pre-plating peak in 2019. In September, the news emerged that the engine based in Denver, which focuses on hotel reservations, flights, car rentals and meeting spaces, had collected $ 140 million with an evaluation of $ 2.1 billion.
Travelek, for his part, has published an all-in-one platform for companies to book, manage and report all their national and international travel, with additions that extend the platform to functions such as human resources and expenses.
While the pandemic has had an indelible impact on the culture of work in terms of remote and hybrid work, there is little correlation between this and the type of business trip that Traveperk is involved. The President and Operational Director of Traveperk, Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo, underlined his recent report on the business of Business Travel, who discovered that companies are still planning to invest in travel to increase sales and new commercial activities, How to travel in conferences.
“The hybrid and remote work models have had a minimum impact on the demand for business trips: those who travel for work will continue to do so, because it is part of their work,” said Taunay-Bucalo in Techcrunch by e-mail. “Whether it’s a sales meeting or install a wind turbine, there are many situations in which workers must be on the ground and in person.”
However, a more distributed workforce means that companies are investing more in the official, which require travel. And Traveperk sees this decentralization as a perfect opportunity to put his technology in the hands of several people.
“The decentralized travel systems allow employees to manage their reservations and, while in the past this meant a lack of control over expenses and compliance, the tools integrated in our platform return control and visibility to the business providing supervision without weighing Travel trips with logistics complexity, “said Taunay-Bucalo.
“Unified trips and expenses”
Founded in 2015, Traveperk had previously collected about $ 660 million in equity and debt capital, and with other $ 200 million in the bank, the company said that it is now doubled its global growth plans. This includes the US market, where it acquired the Rivale Amtrav based in Chicago last year with $ 135 million debt funding.
But these growth efforts also include expansion in tangential vertical. Among the existing integrations of Traveperk there is Yokoy, an expense management platform authorized by the AI supported by Sequoia Capital. And as part of the series financing announcement and Monday, Traveperk said that he is now acquiring Yokoy for a sum not disclosed – although Techcrunch is said that it was a “nine -digit” transaction, which makes sense given that Yokoy He had collected about $ 107 million from him inception in 2019.
This will allow Traveperk to offer a “deeper and more unified travel and expenses offer”, with the expenses cooked in a native way in its basic platform rather than relying exclusively on third -party additions.
“Our goal has never been stronger when we expand through the fundamental markets, we accelerate growth in the United States and now we work to become the travel platform and management of number one expenses,” said the co-founder and CEO of Traveperk avi meir (pictured above) in a declaration.
This mirror moves elsewhere in the technological kingdom. For example, the tripasctions have extended to the management of expenses in 2020 in response to a pandemic that put the travel plans of most companies on the long -term break. In the meantime, the ramp moved in the opposite direction in 2022, adding the management of travel to the product of existing expenses.
The expansion of expenses makes much sense, since the future tests against any opposite wind that the travel sector must face today and in the future. In fact, expenses are something with which all companies have to do, regardless of their position on business trips.
Following the transaction, the Yokoy team, including the CEO Philippe Sahli and the CTO Devis Lussi, will join Traveperk, where they are able to integrate the respective products.
“Our partnership with Yokoy has already been a great success and we are thrilled to bring it to the next level by welcoming Phil, Devis and the rest of the team to Traveperk,” Meir said. “We share a common vision for the role of AI that remodels the future of the management of travel and expenses and the innovation that comes out of the Ai workshops of Yokoy in Zurich is truly impressive.”
The Serie and Traveperk round was led by the European atomic risk capital company, with the participation of EQT Growth, Noteus Partners, Kinnevik, General Catalyst, among other existing investors.
